Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Week 3 Journal Entry/Critique

Although the idea of having a complimentary magazine for your friends and clients is nice as well as a great PR move, the current design of the DC and San Francisco Chefs seems poor and hastily thrown together. I did however enjoy that the format for the magazine is wider than most other comparable magazines. The cover of the magazine lacks appeal and originality in the content and composition. The flatware wrapped in ribbons seemed to give some people I had shown, the impression that this was a catalog, at a glance. The masthead in Century Gothic, in all caps is also unoriginal and difficult to read.In regards to the use of text, overall, I understand that the chef prefers white space in the layouts, and this could be achieved by using set type styles, sizes, and leading. There should also be a set number of words per page so that the layouts compliment the recipes and profiles, instead of weighing them down. The logos used in the profiles should be restricted to the last two pages, possibly following or within the “On the Side” section. The folios alternate from the outside lower left of a spread to the inner lower right, where it could be easily overlooked. The photography used in the previous issue is fine; it’s the way that the photos are sized and cropped that kills the potential impact that it could have on the reader. The captions for the photos do not compliment them or work with them in any unifying way.I believe, after viewing the on-line version of this magazine, that this publication was designed to be viewed on-line. This could be so because of the way the issues regarding the lack of margins, or the irregular placement of images and text fields do not seem as troublesome when viewed on screen.I’m not sure about how affective the placement of advertisements is in relation to the chef’ profiles or relevance to each other. The sophisticated image that we’re striving for could be possible without being too conservative in our concepts and ideas. In most areas of the magazine the type is too large anyways. So by simply reducing the point size a little we have given ourselves a lot more white space to use. The design of the chef’s recommendation pages are inconsistent and lack any aesthetic appeal or interest to the reader. It looks as if this section might have been a last minute addition by the way it contrasts the treatment of the other layouts. The dedication page could be seen as insulting to some people because of the impractical use of center justified text looked when it’s reversed. At least there are margins on this particular page. The layout of the index/publisher’s info page feels the same as the table of contents page does, in that it uses typefaces inconsistently and in a boring layout. Overall the desired look of the magazine could be made so that there is a visual flow to the information that s inviting while maintaining it’s functionality.